Moonlight Dance Academy (Hotshot Book 5)

by Mike Faricy

  “Maybe another hour. Once we’ve distributed the snacks and then picked up, we’ll be serving.”

  “Sir?” The attendant smiled and then a horrified look washed over her face as she recognized Dillon. She was the same flight attendant who told him she couldn’t help with the seating, suggesting he could take a flight the following evening if he didn’t like it. That was just before she ran off to deliver the seat belt extension. “Something to drink, sir?”

  He glared back. “I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks and one of your evaluation forms.”

  “Umm, I’m afraid that will be ten dollars,” she said and seemed to drift back a foot or two in the event he took a swing at her.

  He handed her the ten-dollar bill he’d been folding and unfolding for the past thirty minutes, then pulled down his tray. Instead of lowering all the way down, the tray rested on the woman’s stomach at about a forty-five-degree angle. Her huge stomach was resting on top of her massive thighs, which together blocked any further tray progress. Dillon looked up at the flight attendant and glared again, thinking, You have got to be kidding me, and I’m paying for all this? Even though he wasn’t really paying.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we don’t take cash. Credit cards only, sir,” she said and handed back his ten-dollar bill.

  “Really?” he said, snatching the ten from her hands. “Better give me a second evaluation form, one won’t have enough room.”

  At this point, his seat-mate asked, “I wonder if I could trouble you for another bag or two of pretzels? They’re so small, barely anything in them.”

  The attendant quickly handed her two more bags, then looked at Dillon and thought, Oh, you poor bastard. She had a change of heart, poured Dillon a bourbon on the rocks, and said, “No charge, sir,” then decided the best course of action would be to simply flee the scene, and she hurried up the aisle a couple of rows to get away.

  Dillon finished his bourbon and ordered another. The moment the second drink was finished, he closed his eyes and prayed he could get some sleep. He slept fitfully, suffering through the recurring nightmare of being chained in a small room with the walls slowly closing in on him. But his fervent prayer for sleep must have been answered because when next he woke, the flight attendant was in the process of collecting two empty dinner trays from his seat-mate. She handed both trays to Dillon, then quickly reached up and grabbed an uneaten package of cookies from the top tray.

  A moment later, the overhead announcement came across, instructing everyone to return their seats back to the upright position. Dillon’s stomach gave a loud growl just as his seat-mate quickly stuffed the two cookies into her mouth and chewed vigorously.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and anxiously glanced over to look out the window as the plane made its final approach over the Irish coastline heading into Dublin airport. It would be his first real view of Ireland. Unfortunately, and not at all surprisingly, his seat-mate was completely blocking the window.

  The moment the plane came to a stop and the “fasten seatbelt” sign went off, Dillon was the first person bounding out of his seat. The entire left side of his body felt numb. Mr. Nibbles popped his head out from the valley of cleavage for a brief moment, gave a quick growl in Dillon’s direction, then ducked back down like the little sewer rat he was and disappeared.

  Once off the plane he walked down a large, long corridor with black and white posters of famous Irish individuals hanging from the wall. Sports figures, actors, writers, and musicians stared back at him in earnest as he hurried past. He wove in and out of the crowd of slower-moving passengers heading toward passport control, hoping to get toward the front of the line. The mob of passengers thinned ever so slightly every time it passed a restroom.

  He needn't have bothered hurrying, the line for non-EU passports wove back and forth through a mile or two of lanes defined by blue nylon belts. Most of the people standing in line ahead of him had carry-on luggage large enough to hide a body in.

  Whoever was at the front of the line had to stand and wait until they were called by one of the passport control officers. There were a good two hundred people ahead of Dillon, another hundred or so filling in behind him, and things didn’t seem to be moving all that quickly. As a matter of fact, they didn’t seem to be moving at all.

  He was in the process of stretching and turning left and right at the waist in an effort to massage a semblance of life back into the left half of his body. After having a couple hundred pounds of dead weight plus Mr. Nibbles draped over it for the past six-plus hours, he could barely feel a thing.

  “Mr. Jack Dillon, please. Is there a Jack Dillon here?” a female voice called out from the front of the line.

  Thank God, Dillon thought and called, “Over here.” He waved his hand above his head. As if in response, a good two hundred heads turned in unison and stared at him.

  “One moment, please,” a woman called, then walked along the far side of the line toward the lane where he stood. He noticed she was wearing a uniform. She stopped and unhooked one of the nylon belts forming the aisles. “If you’ll come this way, please,” she said and indicated he move toward her with a wave of her arm.

  “I wonder what that guy’s got that’s so special?” someone growled from further back in line.

  Dillon wound his way past people seemingly still half-asleep on their feet. He edged his way past an exhausted young couple holding two sleeping toddlers, and a group of four college girls carrying backpacks, who looked like they were going to be camping in the wilderness for a month. He wiggled around a business guy in a blue suit coat who appeared to be reading a newspaper and moved over no more than a half-inch so Dillon could just barely squeeze past him.

  “Is he the only one?” some guy called as Dillon edged around the footlocker that apparently served as the business suit’s carry-on luggage. He stepped past the nylon belts, then waited for the woman to reattach the belt.

  “We’ve all had a very long flight,” a woman with a pink suitcase emblazoned with white cat paws said. She had a matching handbag slung over her left arm. A strand of red yarn was tied around the handle of her suitcase, apparently to make her suitcase stand out, as if there’d be a number of similar pieces of luggage in any baggage claim area.

  So long, my fellow travelers, Dillon thought, not one bit sorry to leave them all standing in line.

  Chapter Seven

  The woman who had called his name was an attractive redhead, hair just a little shorter than shoulder-length, made all the more attractive by her green eyes and freckles.

  Dillon thought, If this is what they look like over here, it’s going to make the last six hours worth the trouble. She wore dark blue trousers, a light blue shirt with dark blue epaulets, and a dark blue tie. She sported fairly large breasts, a slim waist, wonderfully curved hips the trousers failed to hide, and a smile that would melt you on the spot.

  “US Marshal Jack Dillon?” she asked as he stepped forward.

  “That’s me.”

  “Welcome to Ireland, Marshal. I’m Garda Ann Dumphy. This way, sir, if you please, and we’ll get you out of this line. A long flight, I hear, you’re almost five hours late.” She indicated a long hallway with her hand, smiled gleaming white teeth and thought, For being five hours late and six hours behind the local time, you’re not too bad-looking. How unfortunate this has to be about business.

  “After you,” Dillon said, then followed as she walked him past the passport control stations, down a long hall and toward a door marked “PRIVATE.” Her uniform, which appeared to be designed to hide her figure, was fortunately failing at the task, and he continued to admire the enticing view from behind. She opened the door then stepped to the side, holding the door for him to enter the room.

  The windowless room they entered had a number of color monitors along one wall. Uniformed Garda were seated in front of every two monitors. Bits of casual conversation occasionally flowed back and forth between the officers. A ceramic mug seemed to b
e in front of just about everyone.

  “How did they even let her on the flight?” someone said.

  “God, will you look at that,” another replied.

  “Better bring her in for a full-body search,” someone said, and a number of people laughed.

  “It’ll take days. God only knows what you’ll find,” another replied, which brought more laughter from everyone.

  “She’s one for you, Brady. But you’d have to take tops.”

  Dillon looked over at one of the monitors. Surprise, surprise, his seat-mate in the pink moo-moo was taking up the entire screen and then some. Other passengers waiting in line behind her were staring. You could see a couple of them whispering a comment which would then bring a smile to the recipient’s face.

  God, you think that’s bad, you ought to try sitting next to it for six hours, Dillon thought.

  “God bless. But would you look at that. Unbelievable,” someone said, and silence seemed to fall over the room as her massive figure drifted into position at the back of the line. She wiggled and squirmed for a few moments, no doubt getting Mr. Nibbles’ position adjusted.

  “She’s smuggling a dog in,” Dillon said to no one in particular.

  One of the guys in front of a monitor spun round in his desk chair and studied Dillon for a long moment. He wore a blue uniform shirt just like Ann Dumphy’s, though nowhere near as interesting. He grabbed a white mug with a Dublin Airport logo in his right hand, took a long, slurpy sip, then pushed his glasses back up on his nose and said, “What was that? You know her? What was she smuggling?”

  “I said she’s got a dog. She has the thing hidden somewhere in that gigantic pink outfit. I had to sit next to her on the flight. Christ almighty, the left side of my body will be numb for the remainder of the day. Honest to God, she took up two seats and she had this small, little brown dog hidden in her cleavage. The damn thing growled at me.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. I feel duty-bound to turn her in. She calls the damn thing, ‘Mr. Nibbles.’”

  “Her boobs?” someone called out, and the comment brought laughter from the group.

  “No, the wretched little dog. She called him Mr. Nibbles and fed him pretzels during the flight. He's a little brown furry thing, not much bigger than a double cheeseburger. And the damn thing is mean. Like I said, he growled at me. More than once.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve a holding room big enough for her,” the guy with the mug said, then picked up a phone, pressed a button, and began to speak a moment or two later. “Yeah, Kevin, give a look to the far back of the line. There’s a very large woman in an absolute tent of a pink dress standing back there. Yeah, I know, impossible to miss.”

  “They call it a moo-moo,” Dillon said.

  “Bloody tent is what it is,” someone replied.

  “Moo, moo,” someone called, sounding like a cow, and the room erupted in laughter.

  The guy on the phone shot a quick look over his shoulder at the monitor, then spun his chair round to face it and said, “No thanks, I’ve a bad back. When she gets to the front of the line, pull her out and put her in interview room A. What? No, we’ve reason to believe she’s smuggling a dog in. No, she’s actually got it inside the pink outfit somewhere. Yes. Absolutely, a dog rescue, no doubt the thing is about to suffocate.”

  That last line brought more chuckles from the group.

  “Poor thing will be scarred for life,” someone said.

  Once he hung up the phone, he spun back round in his chair. “So you’re the Yank? A US Marshal, we hear.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Dillon, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  The accent was very different from the woman who had escorted him into the room, and Dillon had to concentrate to understand it. The man took a sip from his mug and smiled.

  “You disappoint me, Marshal. I was hoping for someone in a cowboy hat and boots. And your mates call you Dildo? Is that right?” he said, then looked left and right as everyone had a laugh. The redhead standing next to Dillon glanced at the floor and seemed to chuckle.

  “Who told you that?”

  “We have our sources. All anonymous, of course.”

  Dillon kept a straight face and silently cursed Olson and Douglass or whichever former friend it was who gave his nickname away.

  “I’m here to escort an American citizen by the name of Daniel Ackermann back to the States. We’ve got room and board for at least the next seven years just waiting for him, and his appearance back in the US, compliments of the government, is long overdue.”

  “Another banker. He sounds like a wonderful guy, and you’re certainly welcome to him. Officer Ann Dumphy will take you to him. Humphy Dumphy, we call her.” A couple of guys laughed, but not everyone, and not Ann Dumphy, whose green eyes, once she looked up from the floor, had suddenly grown very cold.

  “So, apparently everyone here has a nickname,” Dillon said. “What’s yours then?”

  “Plonker,” someone called from behind, and that brought more laughter from the group.

  “Dumphy will get you settled into your hotel accommodations. We’ve reserved a room at the Gresham for you. Have you been here before?”

  “No, first time in Dublin.”

  The guy turned toward Dumphy and asked, “You’ve got the packet of contact information he’ll need?”

  She nodded. “All set, usual signatures needed, but no problems thus far, and I don’t expect any.”

  “And Marshal, you brought your paperwork, I trust,” he said to Dillon.

  “All filled out according to your regulations,” Dillon replied and patted his computer bag. “Do you need to take a look?”

  “No, thankfully. Just want to make sure you don’t have a problem going in. Last minute is not the way to do this.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  “Might as well head to the Gresham,” he said to Dumphy. “With this flight delay and late arrival, you’ve a bit tighter than normal schedule.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll bring him there, get checked in and settled, then over to the ‘Joy’ at three.” She glanced at her watch. “It’ll be a bit of a tight timeframe, but nothing we can’t handle,” she said.

  “Maybe once you check into your room, you can get cleaned up. With that late arrival, you don’t have much time before your initial meeting at Mountjoy prison. As long as your paperwork is in order, everything should go smoothly. We’d like nothing better than to get the cost of keeping this knacker off our books.”

  Dillon nodded, thinking, Not so fast, then said, “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

  “Daly,” he said, standing from his chair. “Patrick Daly. My friends call me Paddy. It’s nice to meet you, Marshal. Listen, not to hurry you off, but it would be bad form to be late. With your initial appointment at three this afternoon, you’ve barely enough time to grab a shower and change. Everything goes well this afternoon, and you’ll be at the Four Courts tomorrow morning. What time is that?” he said and looked at Dumphy.

  “The hearing’s at ten,” she said, then faced Dillon. “It’s all rather perfunctory at that point, that is, provided your paperwork is in order. Basically, just a rubber stamp.”

  “There you go, Marshal Dillon. A pleasure meeting you, and thanks for the dog smuggler tip. Now, you enjoy the rest of your day and welcome to Ireland,” Daly said, then settled back into his chair, spun around, and studied the computer screens in front of him. “Now, where is she, your woman in the pink woof-woof with the dog?”

  “It’s a moo-moo,” someone called farther down the line, and everyone chuckled.

  “Yes, quite, a moo-moo,” he said, sounding like a cow. “God only knows what else she’s hiding.”

  “This way, Marshal. We’ll taxi into the city center. Do you have any luggage to claim?” Ann Dumphy asked as she directed Dillon toward the door.

  There was a part of him, perhaps a vicious part, that half-wan
ted to stay and watch the dog-smuggling interrogation of his seat-mate, but apparently, they were pressed for time.

  Garda Dumphy led him through the airport baggage claim area, out a door, down a large escalator and then outside to wait in the queue for a taxi. The line was long but moving pretty fast. They didn’t have to wait more than five minutes before a taxi pulled up, and they climbed in.

  It was Dillon’s first experience with the steering on the right-hand side of the vehicle, and he stared from the comfort of the back seat for a long moment. Not bad, he thought. Exotic international travel, as long as you ruled out his seat-mate on the flight over. A gorgeous redhead to escort him through the process and maybe even around town if he could talk her into it later on. He could get used to this life.

  Traffic seemed to be just like the States, heavy and not making any real progress. The cars were different, not just the right side steering, but the size as well, smaller and more compact. Once they left, the actual airport area traffic seemed to move much better. They pulled onto whatever the Irish called their interstate system and picked up speed. Two exits later, they pulled onto a city street, and things seemed to move slower.

  “You said you’d never been here before?” Ann said.

  “No, never to Ireland.”

  “I hope you like it,” she said, then settled back and gazed out the window. Dillon sat back and did the same, looking at the buildings and the people walking down the street. There seemed to be a lot more foot traffic than he was used to, and a number of bicycles. They were headed toward the center of the city, although the area still appeared highly residential with lots of two and three-story buildings that looked to be a hundred years old.

  Chapter Eight

  It was just after two by the time the taxi dropped them off in front of the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street in Dublin’s city center. The hotel was just across the street and about a block from the GPO, the General Post Office. It was one of the many historical structures that were shelled in the 1916 Easter Rebellion, back when O’Connell Street was called Sackville Street. Dillon knew this because he’d spent a few nights earlier in the week trying to get a feel for the city while looking at Google images.